Apple's App Store police are barring yet another app, but this time the developers are taking their cause to the public.
"It doesn't use Flash, and it's not porn, so why the ban?" asks Scott Piro, a spokesman for Tawkon, the Israeli developer of the eponymous app.
Well, possibly the best answer to that question is: "Because …

Love the youtube comments as well

Such as the top rated one :

"Apple should continue to show its leadership by adopting this must have﻿ technology which will soon become de-facto on additional platforms (already on Blackberry) - people need the right to chooose and apple as an innovator and provider of cutting edge user experiences should drive this kind of beneficial App and take a proactive stance..."

Hmmm. Strange how this genuine member of the public is so familiar with marketing speak. A coincidence, I'm sure...

$10 FUD app for the short-sighted

Tawkon is getting a lot of press attention. Would an unknown company peddling junk science deliberately break Apple's API guidelines to ensure App Store rejection and the golden opportunity to make a public fuss? Their ridiculous video seems like a confession that they planned this all along.

The default comment on Tawkon's petition is "I want the ability to avoid radiation." There's something I don't understand... if mobile phone radiation really is a health threat, how can consulting an animated app *at the time of exposure* be preferable to consistently using a wired headset? Perhaps a stray Tawkon partisan can enlighten me.

I find it somewhat gratifying that when Apple eventually approves this thing, it will end up in the Entertainment section with various gag apps like Ghost Radar and the "lie detectors." Of course, those apps sell for $0.99 and don't try to say that a purchase is an investment in your future health.

you called for a Stray Tawkon Partisan?

I use tawkon and can tell you that while using a wired headset all the time could probably do the trick, its just not convenient to always plug in. I like being pinged when I should activate speakerphone or bluetooth and i also like seeing the little green symbol before I make a call that shows me it's a low radiation place to speak. I realize that we won't know the exact health impact of phone radiation for several years, but until then I think under $10 is well worth the peace of mind...

Manipulative & phony marketing for a manipulative & phony product

No mobile phone hardware gathers the data needed to produce meaningful SAR measurements. At best, this app's algorithms are producing shadowy projections that aren't related to real-world conditions. It's worth noting that the app compiles statistics purporting to show how much radiation that the user has "absorbed" over a period of time, as if it were talking about ionizing radiation. How the devs can present numbers for such a thing without a helmet accessory, claim to be sincere (and also sleep at night) I don't know. IMHO, Tawkon is as honest as PT Barnum, and this app provides peace of mind in the same way as a rabbit's foot keychain.

Apple knows just as well as RIM does that Tawkon buyers are not going to junk their phones, especially since iPhones come in with lower SAR ratings than several Blackberries. Tawkon's insinuations don't make sense at face value, but they make a lot more sense as a cynical ploy to stir up press coverage and gain positive regard for itself.

Folks concerned about the effects of non-ionizing radiation are better served by breaking the habit of putting a phone to their heads than by relying on an app to manage that behavior for them.

@Rashi

How many years? We're up to... let me see now... 30 years of mobile phone usage. And about 90 of widespread artificial radio (similarly non-ionising radiation) coverage. You're under constant bombardment from signals radiated from satellite comms, from naturally occurring cosmic rays, and /enough IR, visible light and UV to burn your skin and cause cancer in a matter of hours/. Even in Winter in Scotland.

Whereas after an hour of mobile phone usage the temperature of my ear hasn't risen more than a few degrees more than it would have if I was just holding the warm plastic-encased-battery to my head.

And I'd just like to point out again that it's non-ionizing radiation- the damage it does is thanks to the absorbed energy (which isn't that high a percentage- or you'd only be able to get a phone signal when your phone was on the side of your head pointing at the base station) rather than actual chemical damage like alpha or beta radiation (helium nuclei and radiated electrons, if I remember my A-levels correctly).

If we ever come up with a phone that works by radiating fast neutrons there'll be a health risk. But at the moment you're more likely to kill yourself getting a bit of cracked glass touchscreen in your blood than you are through overuse of a mobile phone. Or being shot, in Canada, by an escaped team of crack commandos, who are actually cyborg elephants in disguise trying to overthrow you and the rest of the Empire you now command.

Why bother .....

...... trying to re-educate ?

Cretins like this are born every minute, and are clearly born completely immune to rational argument. However, it seems the gene that prevents absorbtion of rational argument is the same one that leads to frivolously parting with money.

Lifes great challenge is finding these poor retards, and discovering a way to make the money end up in your pocket. They cant be re-educated. And theyre _happy_ to get rid of the money, he said it himself: "10$ is not a lot for peace of mind". Hats off to the makers of this app. Its a win win.

I, for one

Heh

All of that SAR and W/kg stuff sounds familiar - from when I trained on and worked with actual (gamma ray, neutron) chemical radioactive sources.

Measuring the effects of (ionizing, who cares about the other sort?) radiation is complex, because different types of radiation transfer different amounts of energy to different types of matter, and it's a volumetric effect, which adds a hint of geometry to the complication. Measuring the source strength is only semi-useful if 90% of the emmitted energy goes through the target/subject - W/kg is a reasonable way to compare energy absorbtion rate (W = joules/second) per density-adjusted volume (that simplifies to mass.) That way you can sort of compare alpha radiation (really shallow penetration, 100% energy transfer to target) to gamma rays (most of them go right through you.)

Of course then you've got to correct for the fact that different types of radiation has more or less effect, given the same SAR, so you get correction factors, which for non-ionizing radiation is probably something like 0. For the real man's variety of high-energy particles, you end up with units that factor in these correction factors, like Sieverts or Milli Grays or something. It's been a while since I cared for anything other than Rads, as that's what's on the dial of your average Geiger counter (which coincidentially only measure gamma radiation - the only way to detect something like neutron radiation is by the gamma rays that are given off in neutron + atom collisions.)

I thought they also detected ...

Beta radiation detection...

I thought Geiger counters detected Beta Particles?

My recollection of A-Level physics (and a quick look at Wikipedia) tells me that they usually detect beta particles but can be modified for Gamma radiation or Alpha particles by having thicker walls or different windows.

For gamma I thought the usual method was photographic film, covered by a specially-designed shield if Beta particles needed to be discounted?

Mr

Mobile dongles can & do give people headaches you know - albeit more in low signal areas where highish power is needed. Both me and my sister can't use them for more than half an hour without starting to feel ill. There's one hell of a big difference between a slightly misfiring neuron or two and any sort of cancer whatsoever, but saying that these have absolutely no effect whatsoever is bull.

Any commentards who see the idea that mobiles might have even the slightest even ~harmless effect on people as heresy will no doubt flame this as per usual.

Quite agree with the headaches.

I quite agree that some radio transmissions can give quite severe headaches.

I used to do Amateur Radio and remember one night I was talking for a few hours to a friend on my hand-held radio. During this time I had it plugged into a 12v PSU to save the battery from going flat.

Afterwards the radio was really hot due to the amount of transmitting it had been doing, and I had a really bad headache. The headache was in the area where the radio's antenna had been closest to my head. Since then I've never used my amateur radio gear in such a way.

This could be totally different though to mobile phones as the frequency I used then in amateur radio was 1.44-1.45Mhz (2m), where as mobile phones use Ghz so either might not induce headaches but do more serious damage, or might do no damage whatsoever.

Wrong term

I believe you are using the word dongle incorrectly if you are referring to, say, a Bluetooth headset. Please look up the traditional usage on a site like Wikipedia.

You present two untestable data points for your argument. Wow.

I might suggest other explanations. I find listening to music through headphones uncomfortable, but I don't attribute it to electromagnetic radiation. I suspect it has more to do with stuffing hard bits of material in my ears and subjecting my eardrums to sound at close range. Perhaps you and your sister, possibly related?, simply have physically sensitive ears?

I'm referring to what is commonly accepted as 'dongle' nowadays

Sorry Darren

2m is 144 mHz up to 148 mHz, not 1.44 mHz, that is the end of the AM radio band. I've also had a headache using with ham radio gear. This was an AREC (Amateur Radio Emergency Corp) exercise. I was using 80 m HF gear (3.5 to 3.8 mHz) the problem I had was a dehydration headache. I had basically operated for 6 hours without a drink.

While we're at it ...

Funnily enough...

you are correct. They haven't. And not for want of trying.

There appeared to be a strong statistical co-relation between smoking and lung cancer in the early tests, but that's not quite the same thing.

I wonder if the same co-relation would be found today with a dispassionate scientific test, but I'm quite sure that no-one would get any funding to do such a test, and that publishing any findings short of a complete confirmation of the 1950s findings would result in the end of any medical career the researchers might have had....

These days, when they can ban segways from the pavement because of the accidents that "might" happen, yet allow virtually every member of society access to a device which could potentially damage their long term health, you've got to wonder if the lunatics are running the asylum.

Still, wonder no more. Its the corporations who are running....everything. Long live the corporation.

Re: While we're at it ...

Erm..

How do you prove a negative? For example, how do you prove that you can't kill a goat by looking at it? All it takes is sometime, somewhere a goat falls down dead after someone stared at it for long enough...

Idiocy

"These days, when they can ban segways from the pavement because of the accidents that "might" happen, yet allow virtually every member of society access to a device which could potentially damage their long term health, you've got to wonder if the lunatics are running the asylum."

The problem is there's no reason to suspect that mobile phones could be dangerous to your health. The simple fact is that drinking mineral water *could* cause brain cancer, eating bread *could* cause liver failure and owning a cat *could* cause a rectal prolapse.

I'm sure plenty of water drinkers have had cancer, and the livers of many bread eaters have packed in. I'll bet a certain percentage of the cat owning population has pink-socked at some point as well.

I wouldn't fret too much about a piddly little 1-2 Watt phone anyway. We've been using 1-2 kilowatt hairdryers for decades - they emit huge levels of non-ionising radiation directly at your cranium, and I'm sure they heat up your brain tissue at least as much as using 2000 mobile phones simultaneously. Until the "death by prolonged hairdryer use" reports start coming in, I'll sleep easy. With my phone next to my head.

RE: Erm..

Tosh

Yes they have. There are many hundreds of studies covering thousands of experiments going back over decades that show and direct measureable correlation between smoking and cancer. Testing did not just finish in the 1950s either, but continued throughout the 70s 80 and into the 90s. May even be studies going on today for all I know, but i found references up to 1995 within 2 minutes of googling. Its not that hard.

You are probably correct in trying to re-do the testing, but not because they might not find a correlation, but because of the moral difficulty of doing testing that is known will kill you. Subjecting thousands more people (or Beagles) to further testing which, at best, will only conform what is known to an even greater degree of accuracy just will not get past the approvals process.

How about controlling exposure by not buying it?

More in-depth thought on that line had not occurred to me until your post. And my thought was, if people are so concerned about their exposure to cellular radiation, why not simply not use a mobile? I mean, how much exposure to herpes is *too* much?

My Boss...

...is always telling me not to carry my MoFo in my top pocket near my heart (the alternative being on my belt near my ovaries!). If she wasn't a chronic smoker, her admonishments might carry more weight! I am pretty sure my daily walk to work along several high-traffic roads is a far higher cancer risk.

Right: there are at least 3 better reasons to ban it.

It cannot detect how far you're holding the antenna from your head. It cannot detect how much power is being reflected away from you. It...

It doesn't do anything except make a stink, which is exactly what the article sez.

(2) Ban it because it cannot work without using private, or non-existent APIs. Even developers who dislike Apple's rules on private APIs concede that apps that use them are at risk of failing, crashing the phone, or even modifying its operations. All the more reason to keep these clowns away from circuitry that could fry your phone.

(3) Recognize that all "legal" iPhone apps are products sold by Apple thru its store. It implicitly endorses the suitability of the apps. There is no way that Apple or XYZ Inc is going to open itself up to lawsuits over hypothetical harm. Tawkon should go peddle its stuff on venues that don't care about shooting themselves in the foot. Maybe Android Don't Care ®.

laziness

good reason

see, THOSE are good reasons, i can get behind those. the alarmist reason given, while true, seems a bit weak. I disagree whole heartedly with the kind of profiteering the app makers are trying to pull off here, but im also against censorship and i think if they comply with all the correct technical guidelines, the content should be allowed.

basicaly, if gullible people want to throw thier money away, thats thier problem. but if the app doesn't meet the technical requirements thats a whole other ball-game and apple has every right to block it, and no petition will (or should) change thier stance on it.

from the article we get the impression that it WAS rejected for problems with its API and all this press is being manufactured by the app maker trying to make a quick buck.

Funny thing

They have done test to prove cell phones don t cause head aches . How did they do it ? they took a group of people that said cell phones gave them head aches and stuck them in a room and placed a cell phone transmitter. They cranked it up, but never told the folks that there was a cell phone transmitter in the room .

Control Group

I'd like to see the control group that got put in a room with a plainly visible "antenna" labelled "BRANEBUSTER GTX 3000 megagigakillerwatt cell tower" (which was in reality nothing more than some old egg cartons and sticky-backed plastic™) who then hopefully proceeded to roll about on the floor clutching their near-exploding heads in "agony".

The "Crock" is Tawkon's

This app cannot work under long-standing rules that Apple has recently clarified: the info that Tawkon claims it uses is not available thru published APIs. Ergo, the app is not merely useless, it is deceptive. Apple bans those, too.

Maybe some day Apple will document the interface that Tawkon needs and they can get the data they want and present it in a way that is not deceptive. I kinda doubt both.

People who want to know how Tawkon thinks they are frying themselves should buy BlackBerries or maybe Tawkon's engineers can figure out how to work on Android.

And just because I'm a great guy, I'll save those interested from the $9.99 expense there, too: especially if you are far away from a tower (e.g., 1 bar) so that the radio needs to send a stronger signal, use a headset to minimize radiation to your skull. Not that it matters. You're welcome.

Testing

@Kain ... your right, except that the test they performed were much more scientific. They using control groups, double blind testing, a wide range of signal strengths and frequencies, using not only randomly selected people, but those claiming to suffer horribly from exposure.

The important thing to remember is that the human mind can cause many of these symptoms. When I get stressed out I experience hives, rashes, skin sensitivity, headaches. If you believe that being near power lines or a radio tower is going to give you a headache it really can.

@AC ... Try to work out an experiment where you either have an active mobile phone next to your head for an hour or one with the battery removed and there is no way for you to tell. Maybe two boxes with phones in them, one placing a call with the volume down, the other with the battery disconnected. Have a friend mix up the boxes while you are not looking.

If the effect you experience is psychological you should be about 50-50% guessing whether you were exposed to an active or inactive phone. If its real and strong you should be close to 100% accurate.

Stuff like this is fun. I was surprised to discover a friend who hates compressed music could tell wav files and the same converted to mp3.. The odd part was most of the time he thought the mp3 was the superior original.

mobile phones

Mobile phones = radiation monsters that will kill people, they'll kill babies, do you know what else kills babies? Foxes, and do you know what, foxes shag other foxes under the age of 18 which means they're dirty peados.

If you don't hate mobile phones, it mean's that you're a paedophile fox, and are you a paedophile fox? If you are you should turn yourself in!